Making a Megacity for Everyone: Towards Inclusiveness and Vitality for Shenzhen's Urban Periphery

The economic reform and ‘Open Door’ policy in China initiated in 1978, and the land reform especially launched in 1987, associated with globalisation, which resulted in a dramatic change in Chinese cities of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation. This study focuses on the context analysis of one of the megacities in China - Shenzhen, pointing out that migration was a key driver of Shenzhen’s development. And migration and industrialisation led to a unique urbanisation phenomenon: the ‘symbiosis’ of urban villages and industrial parks, where migrants live and work. However, the current urban renewal movement, targeting urban villages and industrial parks, does not take the inclusiveness of these urban migrants into account is defined as the problem. To translate this social issue of inclusiveness into the spatial arena, arrival city theory is referred to and expanded to a wider discourse, emphasising the importance of affordable work-related space for migrants and other career starters to promote their career in this specific context.

With the aim of making a megacity for everyone, the research topic on providing affordable work-related space is stated. In order to understand the relationship between socio-economic performativity and urban form, both mathematical analysis approach of space syntax by Hillier and descriptive disciplines suggested by Jacobs, Montgomery, Gehl and Lynch are referred to and verified in this context. As a result of verification, the positive relation between street integration and retailing performativity is revealed, as well as the importance of wide sidewalk, pedestrian-friendly street and attractive public space. The analysis of urban patterns through space syntax profiled the spatial structure and spatial qualities on a local scale, and based on these, planning principles were set for urban strategies in the future.